The title says it all. Not the most pleasant chapter

I was invited to James's house near the start of the summer, and Sirius was there when I arrived. Peter had been invited, but he'd gone to Italy with his family. James and Sirius were eating chocolate on James's bed. When I opened the door to James's bedroom, he jumped, then sighed in relief when he saw it was me.

"Why so scared?" I asked, raising my eyebrows suspiciously.

"Thought you were my mum — I've already had so much sugar today, she's banned me until I eat some fruit," James said, taking another huge bite of chocolate. "Want some?"

I didn't need to be told twice. I took the piece of chocolate James had handed me happily, then asked, "Why've you had so much sugar today?"

"Just stole it," he said proudly. "Then Mum found out, said it was stupid to eat so many sweets, that my teeth would rot… all that rubbish about sugar the grown-ups talk about. Although, now that we're teenagers, we could be considered grown-ups ourselves."

"Yeah, I suppose," I said, chewing silently. Sirius was silent as well. When was he ever silent? "How long have you been here, Sirius?"

"Ever since the end of school," he said, looking down. "I caught one glimpse of parents, then I… chickened out. I'm such a coward, I know…"

"You're not a coward," said James, firmly. "It's what anyone would do in that situation."

I wondered if James knew what Sirius had told me about the previous summer. Since I was unsure, I decided not to say anything.

"They'll probably assume you're here, though," James said, messing up his hair nervously. He always did that when he was nervous. There was silence, until James's dad came in, holding the Daily Prophet.

"Boys, do you know of a girl named Milly Greene?" he asked.

"Yeah," said James, "she's in our year. Why?"

"She's dead."

We sat in silence for at least five minutes, before I finally said, "What happened?"

"Attacked by Death Eaters… just last night," said Fleamont, rubbing his eyes sadly. "Attacked her, her parents, her brother… all dead. Because her mother's muggle-born or some shit like that."

James's fists clenched. "I'm over this. This whole blood status thing. Why does it have to matter so much?"

"I don't know son, I don't know…" Fleamont left the room, leaving the three of us alone.

"That's awful," I said, fidgeting slightly.

More silence, until we heard a loud banging noise come from just outside. Sirius went pale. We all knew what this meant.

"They couldn't even give us twenty-four hours?" James said, dumbfounded. I looked out the open door to his bedroom and saw his parents rushing past, and I heard them open the front door.

"Is Sirius here?" came the hissing voice of Sirius's mother.

"No, I don't think so," said Fleamont, coldly.

"Let us through," Orion demanded.

"I don't think we will," said Euphemia. "You have no right to break into someone's house."

"And your son breaking into ours is OK?" Walburga screamed. "Get out of the way, Potter."

She said the name with such hatred that James seemed to lose all control. He stormed out of his room to approach them, before Sirius or I were in. I heard his yelling from the room I was in, and used James's distraction to help Sirius start to crawl under James's bed.

"YOU DARE TALK TO MY FAMILY THAT WAY?" he shouted.

"Stupid child," Orion snapped. "Your arrogance will get you killed one day. Crucio!"

Sirius and I stopped dead, and rushed out of the room and through the hall, slipping over and scrambling back up until we came to the front door where James was screaming and his parents had their wands pointed at Sirius's parents.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Fleamont screamed. "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Both Walburga and Orion's wands went flying into his hand.

"Sirius!" Walburga screamed when she saw her son. She grabbed his wrist as she punched Fleamont, then her husband grabbed their wands. Before I could get another word to Sirius, his parents apparated, taking him along with them.

"NO!" I screamed. "No, James, we need to do something! James! James!"

I turned around to look at James. His eyes were wide, and he lay sprawled on the floor, his parents kneeled beside him, worried looks on both their faces, and then I remembered: James wasn't used to pain like Sirius and I. It took him a while, but eventually he took in a shaky breath and sat up.

"Oh, James!" Euphemia cried, wrapping her arms around her son.

"Mum… Sirius is with them… he… they… we need to help," James cried.

"Your father and I will go… will you two be alright on your own?" Euphemia ran her fingers through her son's messy hair.

"Why can't we help?" James complained, but his mother touched his face and silenced him.

"You need to rest, James," she said. I could see subtle anger etched on her face, and it was clear she was trying to hide it. "That was dark magic they used on you."

"It wasn't even for a minute…" James said, "I feel fine, honestly, I want to help!"

"We can't risk it."

"But Mum…"

"That's enough, James!" Euphemia stood up finally, looking sternly down at her son. "You're underage. And until you're seventeen, you're under your father and my protection, and we are not going to let you near those… those…" she sighed. "Where's your invisibility cloak, James? Your father and I will need it."

James's eyes fell to the floor, and he mumbled, "it's in my room."

"Thank you," said Euphemia, and she stood up to go to her son's room. After she'd gotten it, she took Fleamont's hand, and they apparated.

"C'mon, let's get the brooms," James said as soon as they left, and headed towards where their brooms were. I scrambled after him, and when we got there, the brooms were gone and there was a note on the wall:

We're not that stupid, James.

James groaned. He looked on the verge of tears, which was rare for James. I knew he hated this sort of situation.

"I'm sure it'll be alright," I said, half to myself and half to James. "Lets…"

I was interrupted by Euphemia and Fleamont arriving, both their faces wide.

"James, Remus, run," Fleamont said urgently.

"Why? What's happening?" I said, trying to read their faces.

"They've sent the Death Eaters after us," Fleamont said breathlessly, "run now."

"Monty, come help me with the protective charms!" Euphemia cried. "Boys, take the invisibility cloak and run."

"Shouldn't we stay and fight?" James said.

"No, James! Run!"

BANG.

"Alright… alright… we're going to defend our house," Fleamont's voice dropped to a whisper. "James, Remus, take the cloak, and run and run and run. We'll see you soon."

He handed the invisibility cloak to James, and raised his wand and shouting, "Protego!"

"Come on James, come on…" I took the cloak from him and threw it over the both of us. I grabbed his arm and half dragged him out the house. I saw flames and people in masks, but continued to run, my bare feet getting cut from each thump onto the small rocks on the floor, but I didn't stop. I kept running, clutching onto James to stop him from going back to his parents. I got it. I really did, but he would get killed if he did that.

One thing did make me stop though. Sirius was standing there, wand raised. Except it wasn't Sirius. His expression was absent minded. Imperious curse. James seemed to want to yell out, so I cupped my hand over his mouth, and used my other hand to cover my own. We stood there silently, until eventually Sirius walked away from us, and I removed my hands.

"Imperious curse…" James whispered, "we need to help…"

"James, we don't have wands, we don't have anything but your cloak, what are we supposed to do?" I said, taking in deep breaths and trying to stay calm, "there's nothing we can do. And if we did have our wands, then sure, but we have nothing. We're no help to anyone. We just need to stay out of the way so the adults can focus on defending the neighbourhood. But right now, we just need to get out of here."

James stopped, then sighed. "Fine. Where do we need to go?"

"Lets… there's a muggle town just a kilometre from Godric's Hollow, isn't there?" I said, "Let's go there."

James nodded his agreeance and we rushed up the hill to leave the village, then started jogging down a road, until we saw a sign welcoming us into the town. We were both still in wizard clothes, so multiple people were staring at us. James sat down on a bench, and I followed suit, trying to clear my mind.

"That escalated quickly," James said, smiling to try to lighten the mood.

"Yeah." Silence followed my response. "I'm sorry about before… I get you want to help, but I was just…"

"Being smart," he finished. "Honestly, we'd all be dead without you, so don't worry about it."

"Oh… well, yeah… I hope Sirius doesn't… kill anyone," I felt myself trembling, "I don't want him to go through that…"

"Oh." James said, looking down at his feet.

"Sorry."

"It's alright." James looked around, seemingly for a change of topic. "What do you want to do after school? As a job?"

"OK, well… don't laugh," I said, he nodded. "Promise me you won't laugh?"

"I promise! Just tell me, Remus!"

"OK… I want to be a teacher," I said, not looking at him. As I expected, James burst out laughing.

"You want to become… the enemy?" he sniggered. "Well, not the enemy, but still… oh, don't tell me you're going to teach Potions, that's the worst…"

"Oh, no, I'm crap at Potions," I responded, "I'm not sure, I'd teach anything but Potions, I suppose. How about you?"

"A Quidditch player," James said.

"Surprise, surprise," I said in mock surprise.

"But apparently you can usually only do that until you're in your mid-thirties, so after that I'll have a kid with Evans, and…"

"Woah," I said, "you don't know for sure you're going to marry Lily. You're not even dating her!"

"Yet."

The conversation seemed to end there because we were both silent again. We sat there for almost an hour, making small talk, until Fleamont and Euphemia Potter found us, and they both embraced James.

"They're gone," said Fleamont. He was limping but didn't say anything. "Two houses destroyed. Not ours. Six deaths."

"And Sirius?" I asked, before I could stop myself.

"He's gone back home," said Euphemia. "There's nothing we could do… but Remus, you should go home, see your parents…"

They wanted time alone, which was fair enough. I wanted to see my own parents, anyway. I nodded, as they took James's hand and my hand, and apparated.

We got to my house, and I said a quick goodbye to James before running in. When I got in, I heard my parents arguing.

"We can't always rely on them."

"What else are we going to do, live on the streets? Sell everything we have to get a new house? We're not rich, Hope!"

"We could try stay here…"

"Remus is going to be put down if we do that."

I heard my mother sigh. I peered around the corner to look at them, both standing in the kitchen. They both looked tired, and had paper scattered across the kitchen bench.

"Maybe… maybe they won't figure it out?" my mum said.

"You know they will."

They were silent, so I decided it was a good thing to walk in and pretend I hadn't heard anything.

"I'm home!" I cried, walking into the kitchen, causing my parents to jump.

"Remus!" Dad cried, "You're here early? What happened?"

"We… got attacked by Death Eaters," I said. I couldn't get the sight of Sirius under the imperious curse out of my head.

"Oh, god," Mum said. "This war… I can't believe it; I just hope nothing else happens…"

As if on cue, our window was smashed by a force, causing Mum to scream. A silvery meerkat appeared in front of us. It was Nana's Patronus the meerkat opened its translucent mouth and spoke to us:

"Pops is dead. House destroyed. Come over when you can."

Dad took a sharp intake of breath.

"Lyall…" Mum started, but he just shook his head and grabbed her hand, then mine, and turned on the spot.